The source, residents say, is South West Water’s Marsh Mills wastewater works. The smell has been around for years. They say it got worse when the new town of Sherford started sending its business the same way. One mother in Cattedown says it is usually every morning. An independent councillor in Plympton says people are selling up. If you sleep with the window open, it gets into the curtains. That is not a lifestyle choice. That is a utility with a personality.
Plymouth City Council’s answer is a survey, so it can “better understand the location, frequency and impact.” Then the findings go to a scrutiny panel, and South West Water is invited to a meeting. This is how Britain treats a smell. First we live with it. Then we map it. Then we invite the people who make it to explain, in a committee room that does not smell of eggs, why the committee room does not smell of eggs.
I have some sympathy. Waste has to go somewhere, and new houses have to flush. I have less sympathy for a process that treats “it stinks” as a data gap. You do not need a heat map of hydrogen sulphide to know that a street should not greet you like a bag of forgotten salad. House prices will do the mapping for you, just more slowly and with more estate agents.
If you are holding the line until the scrutiny panel convenes, Amazon will sell you air freshener. It will not fix Marsh Mills. It will at least pretend the living room has a different opinion.
I do not expect the survey to surprise anyone who has a nose. I do expect a report that says the problem is complex, the works are essential, and residents should keep feeding in their lived experience. Lived experience, in this case, is the smell of eggs at breakfast. Remember that the next time a water company says it is listening. It usually means it has booked a room.
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